Sunday, 10 July 2016

Churches or Political Parties: Who has the Largest Membership?

I write much about the growth and decline of Christian
churches, but given the political events in the UK following the EU referendum
I thought I would compare church membership with political party membership to
see who is the stronger. One result of the referendum has been a vote of no
confidence in the Labour Party leader by most of his MPs, which was followed by
a 60,000 increase in party membership in one week [1]. In church terms that
would be a massive revival! But what does it mean in political party terms?

Membership of UK Political Parties

First, let me give a sense of the size of the main parties
in the UK. Figure 1 shows changes in party membership since 2000 where such
data exists [2,3]. The membership of both the Labour and Conservative Parties
have declined through the period, though both are significantly bigger than the
other parties.

Figure 1

Since the appointment of Jeremy Corbyn as their leader, the
Labour Party has seen a significant membership rise to over 400,000, probably
due to an imminent leadership election. Thus Labour easily has the largest
membership in the UK, over 2.5 times that of the Conservatives, despite its
relative lack of success in recent elections [4]. Both the Liberal Democrats
(Lib Dem) and Green Party have seen recent rises in membership, taking them
past the 60,000 mark, well above the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)
on 47,000. There is little correlation between party size and electoral performance,
or party size with the referendum result!

Declining Churches and Political Parties Compared

Figure 2 compares the memberships of the Church of England
and the Conservative Party since the 1940s [5]. The Conservatives had a massive
post-war recruitment campaign, but have since fallen from a peak of nearly 3
million to just 150,000 members. The Church of England by contrast has fallen
far more slowly from 3 million to just under a million [6]. Despite the well-publicised
decline of the established church, it almost looks healthy compared with the
Conservative Party! The Church of England were once nicknamed the “Conservative
Party at prayer”. I doubt if that is a true description these days. From figure
2 it looks as if the Conservative Party better start praying again!

Figure 2

A similar pattern of decline is seen by comparing the
Methodist Church with the Labour Party, figure 3. In this case the two almost
match each other, though there is no obvious reason why this should be so. Both
had just under 800,000 members in 1960, and both had about 200,000 in 2012.

Figure 3

It is immediately obvious from figures 2 and 3 that changes
in party membership are far more volatile than that of churches. There are a
number of reasons for this:

Unlike churches, most party members need to renew
membership each year, thus they are more likely to disaffiliate if there are
events that disturb them. Note the drop in Labour following its divisions and
election loss in the late 1970s, a similar drop in the Conservatives in the early
1990s for similar reasons.

Unlike churches, joining a political party does not require
any participation at regular meetings. Churches meet every week and for some
you have to make a public confession of faith before you join. That is a level
of commitment I doubt many political parties would wish to introduce [7]!

Thus political parties are much easier to join and leave and
can be done so with little commitment. Note the rapid rise of both parties from
1945-1953. The recruitment campaigns behind this increase have similar dynamics
to that of Christian revival. A research student of mine explained this rise
with a similar model to the Limited Enthusiasm Model of church growth – word of
mouth dynamics [3,8]. There is a similar revival in the Labour Party in the
late 1990s (figure 3) when Tony Blair came to power. But the general trend of
both mainstream parties is down. It is estimated that in these periods of
political revival the majority of party members were completely inactive [3].

Growing Churches and Political Parties Compared

Yes there are growing churches! As the mainline
denominations decline other denominations are growing and taking some of the
vacant space in the Christian landscape. Figure 4 compares the decline of the
Methodists with the growth of Pentecostalism, the Eastern Orthodox, and the
“New” churches. The latter are independent charismatic churches, including New
Frontiers and Vineyard, which came about as a result of the charismatic revival
that started in the 1960-70s. Their growth has slowed of late, though not
ceased, as many of these churches are in transition from the first generation
of leadership.

Figure 4

Notice both Pentecostals and the Eastern Orthodox have now
passed the Methodist Church. Both are enhanced by immigration, the Orthodox
being largely Greek. However there is strong revival growth in Pentecostalism
as well.

How does this growth compare with political parties? Figure
5 compares the sum of the revival churches, Pentecostals and “New”, with the
Labour Party, and with the sum of the Lim Dems, UKIP, Greens and the Scottish
National Party (SNP), all of whom boast of growth. The revival churches are far
larger than both political groupings; even with the recent surge in Labour
membership.

Figure 5

Just as important as the level of membership of the revival
churches is the consistency of their growth, reflecting their long-term member commitment
and regular meetings. We live in times where churches are scorned, secularism
applauded, and political parties get much media attention for their growth. But
from figure 5 it is clear that churches have a far healthier, and more sustainable,
growth pattern. I could have added to their number all the independent
evangelical churches, and all evangelical and charismatic churches in the
mainstream denominations. Evangelical revival is dwarfing political party
revival!

Membership in 2016

Indeed Christianity has far greater membership than
political parties. Figure 6 shows the state of play at this point in time in
2016. Of course church attendance is lower than membership, but political party
activism is also much lower than their membership [3]. Thus membership
comparison between the two types of organisations is a fair measure of their relative
strength.

Figure 6

Despite its decline the established Church of England is by
far the largest grouping, figure 6. By contrast the Conservatives, the party of
government, are dwarfed by Pentecostals and the Eastern Orthodox. Lib Dems,
Green and UKIP look tiny by comparison. Though note the SNP is significantly
larger than other “small” parties despite drawing from the smaller base of
Scotland. Proportionally the SNP is the most successful UK political party in
membership terms at present.

The largest political party is the Labour Party, figure 6,
and it may well be even bigger by the time I post this blog as people are
joining so fast! Nevertheless it is still only the same size as each of the
Pentecostal and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is possible that once Labour has had
its membership election it will decline again, perhaps forming two parties, due
to disputes about leadership and direction.

The British National Party (BNP), estimated at 4,200, cannot
be seen on this scale, figure 6. Even the Momentum group, currently influencing
the Labour Party, barely registers, even though it doubled from 6,000 to 12,000
recently [1]. There is little correlation between party size and media
coverage. If only churches could get the same positive media attention as
Momentum and UKIP do! Well Jesus never went down well with the powers that be,
so we Christians can’t really expect positive press!

Even when it comes to change over time churches fare better
than political parties, Figure 7 shows the Anglican Church falling less than
the Conservatives over the last 60 years, as already noted [9]. However the
figure also shows the dramatic drop in participation of all organisations over
this period.

Figure 7

Why such a drop of involvement in voluntary organisations?
There are probably many reasons; rising wealth is one. Most people now have
both the money, and the time, to spend it on pleasure pursuits. That is an external
reason. Another may be organisational atrophy, an internal reason. Older
churches and mainstream political parties have become institutionalised. That
is, they have large bureaucracies to maintain, and they occupy prominent
positions in society. Such organisations lose the ability, and perhaps the will,
to recruit to their cause. I have been modelling this with system dynamics,
showing that most organisations have a lifecycle and find it very hard to
survive without a serious dismantling of their institutional structures [10].

Figure 8

Perhaps what we are seeing is the demise of the older
political parties and churches, and the rise of new ones to replace them. Figure
8 compares the growth of the newer parties with churches, showing that it is
the Christian Church that is making a better job of this growth than its
political counterparts. Rather than secularism taking hold, it looks as if
Christianity is having a revival.

Ideological Battle

Of course organisational membership is not the whole story.
As I have previously written Christianity is losing out in the public space to
a new ideology, which I named Diversity [11]. It is humanist in belief and makes
use of various single-issue movements, especially the diversity/inclusion/equality
one, to pursue its cause. It has no party as such, but all political parties
acknowledge it and promote it to some degree, as do some of the older church
denominations. It is this battle where secularism is winning out over
Christianity, driving churches to the margins of society, even though those
churches are numerically healthier than political parties.

So although Christianity can take some comfort that is
having more success than political parties, with some churches having a measure
of revival, it comes at a cost – public hostility. Not from all the public, not
even from most of it, but the hostility of activists and their various elites
in government, media, campaign groups and employment. However we can take
comfort as Biblically we know true revival is given so we can face persecution,
and through it, win many to Christ.

[4] Figures for Labour Party membership are for full
members. In addition Labour has affiliated members from Trade Unions, and
registered supporters who may vote in leadership elections, but not in branch
meetings.

[5] Membership figures for the Conservatives are limited,
partly due to its organisational structure. Like most parties they are
reluctant to release membership figures when they do not tell a good story.

Statistics For Mission. Various volumes from 2007-2014,
Research and Statistics Department Archbishops' Council.

Statistics for Mission.
Various volumes. The Methodist Church.

[7] Churches are primarily about worship – thus are God-centred
and have a sense of eternal destiny. Political parties are about events of this
world and changing things in the near future. Those differences could make
changes in party membership more volatile than that of churches.

[8] The Limited Enthusiasm model of church growth is
explained in a number of publications, e.g.

A General Model of Church Growth
and Decline. Hayward J. Journal of Mathematical Sociology,
29(3), 177-207, (2005).

2 comments:

This was a very encouraging blog. With the politics going on either side of the Atlantic right now I think that it's important to pray and vote but know that no matter who is elected, God is on the throne. Our church, unlike most, asks members to reaffirm their membership every October. Those who don't get phone calls from the pastor to see why they are not renewing. It's a far more accurate impression of membership. Our numbers dropped slightly last year but that's okay, it's about God and not falsely inflated numbers.

Annual recommitment, rededication, is an excellent scheme. I know some churches do this at the same time a vision statement for the year is given. It helps keep people onboard as partners.

Normally I work with attendance rather than membership as a measure of commitment. But many churches either do not know, or do not publish this. Its equivalent in political parties would be difficult to get figures on, but anecdotally I know that many party branch meetings are in single figures, only a small fraction of party membership. Our parties may be in the state they are in because we have left them to so few people to run. I would even know where to start to apply it to your parties in the USA! We deliberately excluded them from the research project.